Washblog

So how do you convert a "pull" medium into a "push"medium like television? AT&T's CEO allegedly said, "the internet can't be free." What exactly he meant by that might seem a little curious. Because, after all, the internet isn't free -- and never was. I pay for my internet connection. I also pay for this website you're looking at. At some point, if I get the kind of readership I'd like, I will need to pay for the bandwidth I use over what is furnished with my basic hosting package. The internet is pay as you go, and pay for what you use. I expect Daily Kos pays a great deal for the bandwidth necessary to support their million visitors a day.

So what the fuck is AT&T's CEO talking about? He's talking about paying still more for access -- as in putting access itself on the auction block for sale to highest bidder. Until now, the principle has been "network neutrality." You pay for access, hosting, bandwidth, regardless of who you are, based on the price of access. AT&T wants to do it like TV advertising. You compete with other sources, and the one with the most money wins. It isn't competition for the best content. It is competition for who has the biggest wallet. In other words, instead of a competition any peon, who is reasonably intelligent, and can write, can win, we will have competition skewed in favor of corporate America.

That is the upshot of a piece of legislation percolating through Congress -- and backed by millions of dollars of corporate lobbying money. The proposal is to end "network neutrality" and basically allow corporate deep pockets to buy up the bandwidth. They want to turn internet into television. They want to turn this new oasis of information, and wide-open opinion, into the same kind of banal wasteland the rest of the corporate media has become.

Which means that we have to figure out how to stop them -- as in identifying this as THE showdown with those soulless bastards.

If we sit back and ignore this threat, places like Daily Kos and Washblog will become a thing of the past.  We'll be right back where we were 20 years ago with one big difference:  Only 5 corporations will control our media.  And we've all seen what that has done to liberals in this country.